Separate tribes

摘要

Three years ago, three nights of rioting between Asians and whites tore Old-ham apart. In the aftermath, locals tried to work out what had gone wrong. One of the Asians' main complaints was that racism excluded them from jobs. While 14% of the town's population comes from an ethnic minority, only 2.6% of Oldham Council employees and only 5% of the workers of First Group, a big bus firm, were Asian. Hardly surprising, then, that the unemployment claimant count amongst the town's whites was 4.8%, but 15.3% amongst the ethnic minorities.